Emeric looks like he wants to say something but changes his mind, folding his paper again. Somewhere under the pile he finds a heavy needle and waxed thread, runes carved on the wooden spool. “Thank you, that was genuinely helpful.”
“You don’t have to sound so shocked.”
“Don’t I?” He threads the needle and starts pushing it through holes punched into the crease of the papers. “I’ll go next. Obviously this would be better if I had my notes, butsomeoneburned them.” He shoots me a look of palpable grievance. “Six months ago, the Order of Prefects received an anonymous tip about the death of the previousMarkgrafvon Reigenbach. All records say he died in his sleep eight years ago, but we needed the steward of the castle to verify it, and he was nowhere to be found. When Klemens and I finally tracked him down, he’d left all family and friend behind and retired to Rósenbor.”
“That’s a long way to go for an easy retirement,” I say. Rósenbor is about as far north as you can get in the Almanic Empire.
Emeric pulls the thread taut. “Exactly. He wouldn’t even open the door for three days. Finally he told us that when he found the former margrave’s body, the feet were”—he grimaces—“worn to tatters. There were bloody human footprints leading to the bed from the window, which was locked from the inside.”
“So anachtmahrrode him to death.” Joniza’s abandoned her lyrics for the moment. She scoots closer to Gisele.
“It would seem so. Klemens didn’t think we had enough evidence to summon the Godly Court, butMarkgrafAdalbrecht’s had the Order’s attention for a while now. He’s driving his own march into debt to fund his wars, the Minkjan city guard are little better than his personal gang, he gains almost nothing from an alliance with Sovabin—”
“Youdon’tthink he’s marrying for love?” I fake my shock. “The pearls are very compelling.”
Gisele sets her mug down a little too loudly. “Yes.They are.”
“Anyway,” Emeric says quickly, “there have also been rumors in the last few years that none of his soldiers can clearly remember their night raids, despite those being his most successful battles. Collectively, that all was enough to open an investigation, and then we took hisPfennigeistcase as a cover.”
“Why, though?” Joniza taps her quill on her parchment. “Why would he invite prefects into his own home?”
Emeric shakes his head as he slips the thread through another group of folded papers. “That I don’t know. My best guess is he’s keeping his enemies close, so he can control what gets reported back to the Order. I also don’t know how the Wolfhünden factor in. Moneyhasmoved from his treasury to their coffers in the last day, outside of the normal payroll, so something’s afoot.”
“How do you know that?” I ask, fascinated.
He gives me a long look, drawing the thread through another set of punctures. “I think we all know why I’m not going to tell you. Princess Gisele, anything to add?”
Gisele stares at her mug, mouth in a tight line. “The streets are talking about thenachtmären. We’ve seen more in the last week than all year, but no one’s connected it to the margrave’s return, and no one’s seen another beast like the one that chased you in Lähl. Besides that . . . I suppose I could see if there’s anything unusual about the guests, if you can get me a roster.”
Emeric sets down his papers and thread, and now I can see it’s starting to take the shape of a new notebook. “All told, I think we can safely say the margrave is behind thenachtmärenattacks, with something ambitious and unpleasant as the end goal. Now . . .”
“You don’t have proof,” Joniza points out. Emeric stiffens. She just shrugs. “I mean, you’re the prefect, you tell me, but it sounds like your word against his. Can you even use what Vanja saw with the Tears?”
He shifts uncomfortably. “It’s . . . complicated. Truth attends every session of the Godly Court, but they’re, well, fluid, because the truth is different for everyone. They can only confirm whether the witness believes their testimony is true. So, Miss Schmidt can testify that shebelievesthe margrave ordered amahrto kill his father. The former steward can testify that itlookedlike amahrkilled him. But that’s not enough to prove he was killed byMarkgrafAdalbrecht’snachtmahrspecifically.”
And I know too well how my word will stand against Adalbrecht’s. “We need more evidence, then. All we have so far is an old painting of him as a miserable, constipated child, everything Ihallucinatedwhile poisoned, and a bunch of coincidences.”
“What if you didn’t hallucinate all of it?” Joniza asks. “You saw him knock out the guards with magic before you went into the study, right?”
I chew on a thumb tip. “Right. He crushed something like a rat skull.”
Emeric sits up straighter, twirling his charcoal stick. “Anything like that would help. At the very least, there may be more leads in his study.”
“There are guards at the main entrances, but I could sneak you in through the servant corridors,” I say slowly. “We could break in during the ball on Sunday. You already have an invitation, after all.”
Gisele frowns. “A margrave inviting a commoner to his wedding ball? That sounds like a trap.”
“Oh, no, it’s—well, it’s kind of a trap,” I say, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “Just Adalbrecht being a bastard. He thinks Junior here has animproper interestin you. I mean, me pretending to be you. Us? There was the whole breakfast incident.”
“Breakfast incident?” Gisele’s voice rises to a squeak.
Emeric’s ears go red as he stabs the needle back into his notebookin-progress with an alarming amount of enthusiasm. “Anyway. I know what to look for, if Miss Schmidt can get me to the study.”
“But the bride-to-be can’t just leave her own ball,” Gisele protests.
“I could take the Vanja’s place,” Ragne offers. Then she does an odd little shiver—and suddenly I’m looking at thePrinzessinin a nightshirt, down to the ruby teardrop under my—her—eye, an alarmingly guileless smile plastered over her face.
“Have you been able to do this the whole time?” I demand.
